In the Grip of Kung Fu

David Carradine's Non-Violent Violence

It’s no surprise the martial arts craze hit the US with such intensity in the early 70s. Promoters of far-east, kung fu disciplines like the Shaolin Way became popular with Americans because they were practicing, in essence, the religion of Kick-Ass. Tie-dyed Seekers of the period, rolodexing through spiritual quests from Ekankar to EST, might finally land on martial arts mysticism, providing a neat combination of America’s favorite pastimes, church and violence. Hence, the karate chop heard ‘round the pop culture world, in disco hits and imported films, in children’s toys with kung fu grip, and in a hit TV series starring David Carradine.

It didn’t hurt the ratings of ABC’s Kung Fu that the series also applied the most popular dramatic theme of the era, beating up rednecks. In keeping with consumer demand in that age of expanding civil rights, the Buford Pussers and Virgil Tibbs of movies and television delivered backhands and beatdowns to the virtual Bull Conners of our national psyche. So too did the not-at-all-Chinese David Carradine represent the inner struggle of a minority class dedicated to peaceful coexistence when confronted by chaw-dribbling hayseeds begging for a mouthful of bloody Chicklets. The slow-motion kicks to their racist noggins were inevitable, much to the viewer’s smug satisfaction. Kung Fu had been market-researched to fist-flying perfection.

Carradine, as Kwai Chang Caine, became the personification of peacenik vengeance, part Maharishi, part Weatherman. In this, the character embodied a victory over pothead pacifism by America’s lust for action. Boys will be boys, no matter how long they grow their hair. In due course, the bitchslapped Appalachians, humiliated so often in Billy Jack and Smokey and the Bandit films, proclaimed their own status as an oppressed minority class, and their representation in films became pronouncedly Schwarzeneggerian. Rambo may have been spreading mayhem in Vietnam, but what he was clearly out to destroy was Woodstock.

The Kung Fu show itself, despite all this zeitgeist baggage, is pretty damned good. It adds enough class to the cop show formula to set the production apart from the dopier Gunsmokes and Wagon Trains that had utilized the same Western sets. Cracker Carradine aside, the show provided work for hundreds of Chinese actors, giving them roles more substantial than the usual Tong War villains and Engrish-speaking manservants. The soundtrack is full of traditional Chinese string and percussion instruments gone surrealist, sounding like a Harry Partch rehearsal. Carradine himself, despite delivering his lines as if he’d suffered a stroke, is effective in the lead.

I won’t even hold it against Kung Fu that the show inspired my older brother to kick me in my 6-year-old head after each episode ended. I was, after all, even at that early age, a foul-tempered redneck who needed to be taught a crippling lesson in tolerance.

- A.H.

(And let’s not forget Ashley’s website, jam-packed with portraits and other drawings, his illustrated rant column, The Symptoms, his highly-affordable prints and books currently available, his eagerness for your portrait commission, and his contact email, thrdgll@gmail.com, where he longs to hear from you.)